Quote:
Originally Posted by KSig RC
Rapidly declining international rankings in math, science and technology would probably be the easiest to start with ... and there's simply no way poverty accounts for the decline.
There's no doubt larger societal issues are part of the problem. But that's no reason to throw our hands up and say "shit, man - society, you know?" Schools can be a part of the solution - an educated population starts to fight the problems that lead to poverty.
|
Well, I have pointed out before that some other countries only test the brightest and best to begin with. Remember all the press around the Olympics about the Chinese athletes who get labeled as athletes early on? They are taken from their homes and trained in special training camp-like places and some of them don't know how to read because they focused only on gymnastics or ice skating, etc. Some of my Chinese co-workers at my last job admitted that kids are tracked at early ages and only those with skills in science and math end up being educated in science and math.
Compare those kids to all of the kids here? Not exactly a fair or realistic comparison. In Michigan, even my co-worker's child with Down's Syndrome takes the Michigan standardized test. She can't read. She's 15. She can't even speak. She takes the test. It's nuts, truly.
While I don't think we should throw in the towel, I think that focusing on teachers is the wrong approach. As a nation, teachers are being attacked as if they are the biggest evil in the country right now. Makes me want to say to people "You go teach middle school for a week and see how it goes".